Have spent a large part of the day working on the edit to The Bones of Summer. Bloody hard work, by George, but I'm enjoying it. I've done - or redone - four chapters now so am leaving it for today. Yes, that may not sound much, I know, but during this part of the game I spend a lot of time thinking and working out what I need to foreshadow and if so how much. Then there's the ditching of repetition, the changing of facts and events which clash with what happens later in the novel (when I'm more in my stride - or should be ...) and the alteration of the viewpoint from first person to third person. And no, much though I'd love it to be, that isn't unfortunately as simple as changing everything from "I" to "he". Dammit! Changing viewpoints changes everything - the look, feel and even the smell of the thing. But it's better in third person. It gels more. And of course, in a gay novel, there's the curse of the pronouns: which "he" is really "he" and which is the other "him"?? A little quirk the straight novel writers amongst us don't get to play with indeed! Ah, the joy of it all ...

Read Full Post

Hi girls and boys. You just will not believe what has happened since my last blog. Honestly - if someone wrote my life as a book, no-one would publish it because everyone would be saying "But that kind of stuff never happens in real life!" Want to bet? Okay. So a quick recap of the last blog - Monday - find out redundancy is on. Tuesday - go to hospital to see consultant and get told camera down throat ( and in at the other end as it turns out) is inevitable. Here then - is the next episode.


Read Full Post

I loved this article by a Kirkus editor who was insane enough to write a novel - and then had to suffer the stress of waiting for the Kirkus review to come out.

Anyhow, in tomorrow's issue of Kirkus there will be a review of A Vengeful Longing. I was sent a preview of it, but I held off posting until the review was available online. I see now that Barnes and Noble have added it to the reviews of the American edition of AVL, so I think it's okay to post it here.

I'll confess I was very worried. But as my UK editor said, I couldn't have asked for a better appreciation of what I've been doing:

Read Full Post

Sound the trumpets and raise the huzzahs! The first draft of The Bones of Summer is done! There will be general rejoicing and bursts of applause over the land. Well, in my own self-obsessed head, at least. And I did what I thought I’d do – I ditched the ridiculously flabby ending and wrote a much tighter and more realistic one. With which I am hugely pleased. Phew. And I’m starting to get that buzz of excitement at the thought of tackling the no doubt equally huge edit. My, but it’s wonderful to have something complete which I can pull apart, pummel to within an inch of its life and generally tear to shreds before sticking back together again once more. It’s what a writer’s life is all about ...

Read Full Post

Talking about fragments; I’ve lived through, and got out of, many phases so I’m sure I don’t have an addiction gene – for the simple reason that I’ve obviously moved on every time to the next one. But, is writing and art addictive in the same way as drugs and alcohol? I watched, Am I Normal? last night, and had to pause when someone pushed forward the idea ‘Just stop’. At first he sounded a bit belligerent and unsympathetic but by the end he’d caught my attention by saying that most people move out of one phase and into the next...and that a lot of addicts stop and move on, eventually too. This is true. And, we are definitely a nanny state.

If being creative is addictive then I’m very happy to be that addict. I’ve had many fun phases where I drank a lot but haven’t become an alcoholic (and we’re talking about waking up in hedges here). There was also the sex;

Read Full Post

http://members.cox.net/joneve/poetry%20perforemed. html

http://waterforestpress.com/Books/EndOfTheVoyageJanOHansen.htm

http://wwwYouTube.com/user/345bambi
http://oskr.podbean.com/2008/04/29/endof voyage/

http:// oskar.aucklandpoetry.com

And if the YouTube video in the previous post wasn't enough, the Literary Rejections on Display blog drew my attention to this post by writer Steve Almond on his website, entitled "Are Agents Necessary?". He says:

after all, the role the agents play is fundamentally parasitic. They do not do the dogged, lonely work of writing, or editing. They merely usher art into the gilded halls of commerce. They broker.

Thus, agents profit by the illusion that, without them, writers would be helpless; and, whether consciously or otherwise, they foster this illusion.

These words speak to me, as someone who "had" an agent for almost two years, but that agent did not do anything for me.

Read Full Post

Gosh, more rain. What a surprise. Or possibly not. I'm not sure we'll ever know sun again. Anyway, have spent most of the day thinking about completely redoing our Personal Tutors’ handbook, which is severely showing its age now. Heck, aren’t we all. We’re hoping for something tighter and jazzier that people will actually use, rather than just admire for a while. Here’s hoping anyway. And actually I’m getting quite enthused about the whole project – at last, my chance to get my evil secretarial hands on a document and cut it to pieces, mwa ha ha! Still, perhaps I’ve been showing a tad too much enthusiasm – the boss was also making noises about me actually presenting the issues at the next meeting of the Personal Tutors’ group – Lordy, no! That would be awful beyond belief! So I’ve managed to negotiate him down to the concept that we both present things together. I couldn’t possibly do it on my own – I’m a secretary, for goodness’ sake, not a real person ...

Read Full Post

I’ve been on the road for years, well the best part of five, and the idea of settling on solid earth is fascinating; my mind is running with streams of images and the possibilities are endless – there will be no patterns on my walls; I want to be surrounded, in that new place, with memories. I also dream of organisation and industry...from me. Hope lives here.

19th April 2005
On a Virgin train to Bristol

Grey clouds under white; the sky is thick with British summer-time. I’m travelling backwards; there’s more time to think about what’s before you, like tiny lambs that are just a crumb on the landscape, and screaming fields of rape blaring at you. Across the world a grandson is stomping around beneath a blue sky and I’m on my way to join him. This trip, I’ve learned to tell the difference between the songs of the robin and the blue-tit, and a larch tree from a birch (not silver – I’m not that bad). Also I was reminded how to make a white sauce; I haven’t done that since I was in school. I come away from this month in Devon a wiser woman.

Read Full Post

I was just racking my brains for something interesting to post last night, when the rain stopped. So I went out for a walk instead. It had been one of those dull days in all senses - hence the lack of bloggy inspiration - much taken up with post offices, photocopiers, supermarkets and misbehaving computers. So even though it was dark by then, and still damp, and there was only time for a quick loop of one of my usual walks where the terrain and the timing are completely familiar, it was good to get out with no more paraphernalia than a house key and a fiver in my pocket.

Sometimes, on such a duty walk, I take with me something to think about, (similarly my father used to take a couple of Times crossword clues in his head to work on) but I had no particular knot to unpick last night.

Read Full Post